Oliver Dowden ‘doesn’t accept’ Michelle Mone’s claim she was ‘scapegoat’ in PPE scandal

Oliver Dowden said he “doesn’t accept” Baroness Michelle Mone’s claim that she and her husband Doug Barrowman were made “scapegoats” for the government’s wider failings over personal protective equipment (PPE) during the Covid pandemic.

Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News on 17 December, the deputy prime minister added: “There’s a limit to what I can say, but I don’t recognise that.”

It comes after Lady Mone apologised for denying her links to the PPE Medpro firm which was awarded government contracts worth more than £200m to supply PPE after she recommended it to ministers.